


A Parrot's Quest

by LeafOffTheWind (LeafOnTheWind)



Series: Ficlet Roulette [5]
Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fic Exchange, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Minor Character, Sleeptalking, Watching Someone Sleep, sick day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27382102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeafOnTheWind/pseuds/LeafOffTheWind
Summary: Short Tom is a parrot that finds it difficult to fly, yet adores being useful. When his human gives him an order in the middle of the night, it is unusual to be sure, but Tom will not fail him as long as he lives.
Series: Ficlet Roulette [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006431
Kudos: 1
Collections: Fanfic Roulette 2020 Round 6





	A Parrot's Quest

**Author's Note:**

> For a fic exchange. The prompts:
> 
> IP: Classic Literature  
> Prompt 1: Sleeptalking  
> Prompt 2: Sick day
> 
> This is POV of a parrot from a children's book, so the language is quite simple for the most part. I hope you enjoy!

Short Tom was a parrot.

He was a good, handsome parrot. His primaries were mostly long and straight, a bright red and yellow and green that would lure him a mate easily in other circumstances. Unfortunately, he was missing a primary on his right and several secondaries from an old injury, making flying more difficult, though by no means impossible.

He was rescued from a predator he’d thought he’d be able to fly away from some years back by his human. He loved his human. His human didn’t care that he had some missing plumage. His human had a sharp appendage, unlike the other humans around, and Tom thought that was rather like missing plumage, as well.

His human was red and yellow, like him. For some reason, he removed his plumage at night, when they slept, but it didn’t seem to hurt him like it would Tom, so he let it be.

Tom was diurnal, like his human, but sometimes liked to stay up as the moon rose. He understood most things that his human said, now, and could speak back, with effort. Sometimes his human spoke at night, too, after laying for hours. It was always strange things, but he liked hearing his human speak. It reminded him how he was useful, still.

He liked being useful.

Tonight was one such night. His human’s humans, those who call him Captain, had had another skirmish with the small humans. Tom didn’t understand why, of course. Both had plenty of food, and neither group seemed to have any mates to fight over. Territory, he supposed, but his human had the sea and the small ones had the land. No overlap to cause conflict.

His human had been shouting orders for quite a while, and flopped into bed quite early, letting out those loud, repetitive snarls that Tom had deduced meant he was sleeping.

He had felt quite useless, today. He had tried to warn them of the small humans sneaking on board, but they didn’t heed his calls. He wasn’t much help at all during the skirmish, either, just waiting out of the line of fire on the masts, waiting for his human to call. He didn’t.

So tonight, he stayed awake. At least he could try to sound an alarm, should a small human sneak in. Tom started drifting off after a few hours, but jerked himself back awake.

The moon was low in the sky, the seas flat and quiet. A perfect night for a sneak attack. The night was young yet.

He realized that the rumbling had stopped. Had his human woke in the night? Was there an attack while he dozed off? Oh, what a useless parrot was he, if he couldn’t even do this for his human? His human would cast him off, and rightly so.

Or perhaps not. There was sound then, but not the rumble; his human was speaking!

“Damned boy… where… Pan… find him!... don’t let… _find him! Find Peter Pan!_ ”

Tom perked up. That was an order! He looked around the room and found nobody else. It was an order for _him!_ Oh happy night!

He shuffled on his perch. He was not the best at flying, but for the sake of his human, he would do his best. He took off, gliding through the small window towards land.

\--

The flight was longer than he anticipated. It was nighttime, perhaps that was it. He was disoriented, not slow or clumsy.

By the time he reached land, it was already mid-night. It would be difficult to find anyone or anything, right now; as a parrot, Tom’s night vision was not very good. But his human had given him an order, and he would find Peter Pan.

\--

Tom was exhausted. He had been up many hours longer than he ever had before, and he could see the sun peeking over the horizon. It was that rising, in fact, that allowed him to find young Peter Pan.

The sun was rising, and so were the people. Tom was by the Mermaid Lagoon, out of sight but not out of hearing distance to the mermaids, listening to them wake. He hoped to eavesdrop a hint as to Peter Pan’s whereabouts.

But then, Tom heard a cry, not of a little boy, but of a girl. How strange. The Lagoon was across the island from the locals’ camp, and all the mermaids are here. A quick glance around proved the mermaids were as perplexed as he, but much less likely to investigate.

Tom did investigate. He flew slowly in the direction of the cry. He was almost where he thought it may have been when, clumsy by injury and exhaustion, he crashed straight into a tree limb he had aimed to land on.

\--

Tom was much less exhausted when he woke. The sun was higher, the air warmer. He must have slept for a while. He was quite glad he was not eaten in that time.

He worried for a moment that he had lost the source of the cry from earlier, but the clamor of many people talking and making merry was familiar to him, and he followed that sound to a small number of huts, hidden amongst the trees and bushes of the forest. How clever! Alas, Short Tom was cleverer than the small humans, he preened.

Short Tom found a sturdy bush nearby where he could spy on them. He needed to make sure Peter Pan was there. He was ordered to find Peter Pan, not find Peter Pan’s humans. He settled in for a long wait.

It did not take long at all before he heard a young girl calling Peter Pan’s name. He dropped to the ground and waddled closer, hidden yet behind a wall of one of their huts.

“Peter! Peter, you will lay right back down. You wanted me to be a mother to you and the other Lost Boys? Then a mother I shall be, and I shall do as all mothers do when their children are ill.”

“What is that, Wendy? What do mothers do?” he heard another young human ask the first.

“Why, I shall feed you soup and medicine to dampen your cough, cool your forehead with a wet cloth to cool your fever, and read you stories to keep you entertained. But above all, you must stay in bed and rest, Peter, if you wish to get better.” It was Peter Pan, indeed, then, for there were no other Peters in Neverland. How wonderful for Tom!

A cough, two. “I quite like the sound of soup and stories, but you cannot expect me to stay in bed all day!”

“When one is sick, they stay in bed and let their mother take care of them. Now am I to be your mother or not?” And he was sick! Tom had seen his human’s humans be sick before. He had to get this back to his human as soon as possible! He would be so happy to hear this news!

\--

Tom must have injured himself when he had hit that branch earlier. No matter. He pushed past the pain, his wings flapping frantically as he headed back to his human.

He flew faster than he had since his injury, unsteady but swift. He flew past the Hanging Tree, past Mermaid Lagoon, past Cannibal Cove. He was tiring once more as he made his way through Crocodile Creek, but he should make it before noon if he continued at this pace. It felt like a clock was ticking in his mind, his wings beating ever faster and—

SNAP.

\--

In Crocodile Creek, there is a certain Crocodile sitting smugly on a rock, with bright red feathers strewn about as he warms himself in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t much of a meal, but it will tide him over. He turns toward the pirate ship, the mast just visible over Pegleg Point. He has time.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

**Author's Note:**

> My initial thought led to a story that likely would have topped 30k in an IP I don't even like, Jane Eyre, so I just jotted that down to get it out of my brain and move on to much smaller aspirations. Initially, I thought that these prompts would fit quite well together, but I ended up splitting them up anyway. C'est la vie!


End file.
